Jun 3, 2022
I heard so many good things about Uzumaki before finally deciding to read it.
I had high expectations for this book, but I was so disappointed.
All of the characters are unlikable, bland, irrational, or complete weirdoes. This ensures that no tension can ever be built, because I absolutely do not care what happens to any of them. The best example is a character towards the beginning of the story who becomes increasingly obsessed with spirals. His family becomes concerned and we watch him spiral into madness. Props for thematic storytelling. I was initially invested in this plot thread
...
and I saw promise in this setup. I liked exploring his weird psychological issue and wanted to see how it escalated.
So the payoff is that this absolute weirdo stuffs himself into a basket and breaks all his bones so that he can be shaped like a spiral. I assume this was meant to be spooky scary body horror. Props for the art. It is very well drawn. But I just started fucking laughing. After this, Uzumaki becomes a weird goofy comedy. But it's not funny for long, and it isn't scary, either. It's just stupid. It started off gripping and engaging and then completely shits the bed.
This story has very little in the way of coherent logic. Completely outrageous things happen all the time, and I guess you're supposed to take them at face value while questioning nothing. By the time people started turning into snails, I was just so uninvested in every weird little thing that proceeded to happen.
I'm going to give some of Ito's other stories a try eventually. There's no doubt in my mind that he's an extremely talented technical artist, and he is demonstrably very creative, but this just doesn't do it for me. I think my expectations were just too high going into this. A lot of that is my fault. But I also blame you fuckin weird Uzumaki people for hyping it up so much.
If you enjoy campy B-movie horror, you may get a kick out of this. But don't go into this book because of all of those people who say it's a life-changing masterpiece of psychological horror with complex philosophies and themes. It is not, and those people are dumb. You will not learn anything from this book. It will not change your perspective. It will not challenge
your beliefs. If that's what you're looking for, as I was, I'll save you some time. These are the three most profound questions Uzumaki will ask you to consider :
"WHY IS THIS CHARACTER ACTING SO DUMB"
"WHAT THE FUCK IS EVEN HAPPENING"
"HOW DO PEOPLE ENJOY THIS MANGA"
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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